Europe

The economic portion of The Collapse began in Europe, as the Christmas Crash of 2016 and a round of debt defaults by Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece triggered a cascade effect which brought the world’s financial system down. Europe suffered as much as anywhere, with rampant unemployment adding to an influx of immigrants from nations to the South pummelled by the effects of climate change and war. Then, the plagues arrived. Millions died along with any European consensus, as each nation hunkered into itself and used draconian security measures to preserve the remnants of its governance.

By 2027, those nations which had been strongest before the Collapse had begun to recover and again looked to a European union which would preserve and extend the continent’s peace and prosperity. Britian had opted out from any European dream one final time with its anti-royal coup, but the problem remained the other hangers-on who wouldn’t leave of their own accord, who would drag any such experiment down. The answer was a set of treaties that culminated in the Unification of 2035 which established the Northern Union, a federal joining of the countries of France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxemburg, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland and Ukraine into one contiguous Union in which each became a State. The Northern Union closed its borders to immigration from Southern Europe and Africa immediately.

Meanwhile, the soft underbelly of Southern Europe has suffered greatly. Still staggering under collapsed economies and the harsh effects of global warming, Spain and Italy have both balkanized and the states of the former Yugoslavia continue to be a sectarian mess, while Portugal and Greece are practically failed states under extremist governments. The nations of Eastern Europe which were left outside the Union are doing slightly better, and some are working for inclusion into that Union while others look to Moscow for patronage.